Terminally-ill man wants a nice meal, a cheerful atmosphere and respectability when he chooses to die

“I would love to have a nice meal and a fairly cheerful atmosphere”. The words could almost be instructions for a birthday dinner, but for 90-year-old Victorian Harry Gardner, it is the way he desires to die.

Mr Gardner, a former scientist and an active folk musician, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003. Two years later his wife of 47 years, Lorraine, a puppeteer, died of pancreatic cancer.

His own cancer has since spread over his body and doctors have given him around two years left to live.

If the bill passes it will be another 18 months before it is operational – and that means qualifying patients will be able to access a drug from a compounding chemist which they will self-administer. Only in cases of people unable to administer the drug – such as motor-neurone disease patients – would a doctor be able to administer the lethal dose.

“I would like to be still alive to take advantage of it and the chances are if what I’m having now is successful, I will be. The reports are I’m not on the point of keeling over,” Mr Gardener tells Nine.com.au.

He was speaking from Macquarie Hospital in Sydney where he is currently undergoing further treatment.

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“Glowing in the dark from radioactivity – at least that’s the joke,” he quipped on the latest round of treatment.

Harry Gardner, 90, wants respectability for himself and his family when he chooses how to die (Supplied).

Mr Gardner wants to be surrounded by his family and friends on his final day.

“I would love to have a nice meal and a fairly cheerful atmosphere, perhaps go into another room,” he says matter-of-factly.

“The thing is I want to be respectable. I don’t want the stigma and the degeneration of suicide hanging around the family thereafter.

“It’s respectability that I crave. Anyone can suicide, that’s been legal in Victoria since 1958. There’s no quarrel with that – anyone can suicide violently but to be able to do it peacefully in the presence of chosen friends and rellies, and to do it quietly and painlessly that causes no one any distress - except for the person that has to come and pick up the body - it appeals to me.”

He says it is in the final four days of prostate cancer that the pain can be traumatic and that is what he wants to prevent.

“So they can say, Harry was seriously ill and he chose not to inflict a lot of suffering on his family,” he explains.

But while he wants to avoid the final pain-filled days, Mr Gardner has not managed to avoid pain completely.

“I’ve had a dream run really, the amount of inconvenience since December 2003 has been minimal but the excruciating pain began earlier this year when the chemotherapy failed, as was sort of expected,” he says.

Music is Harry Gardner's absolute passion and has helped him throughout his illness (Supplied).

The pain has been managed by the drug fentanyl citrate – an opioid pain medication with a rapid onset and short duration of action which Mr Gardener says is “much kinder” to his body than more normal aspirin type of medications.

“It works, to an extent. If one takes a tablet, you hope that the pain would mediate within 30 minutes.”

Reflecting on the pain, Mr Gardener says you can always be conscious “of a little pain” but says during the day it is easier to ignore “because one is interested in other things”.

“On four occasions since February, it has become quite excruciating.”

Mr Gardner’s tone suggests he’s not after sympathy but rather hopes to provide an insight into the importance of the assisted dying bill.

“Of course, the first time this happened, I was scared to death,” he reflects with little emotion.

“I could barely walk from the bedroom into the kitchen, from the kitchen into the sofa to sit down. But then I learnt how to control it.

“Now I’m not nearly as scared… This morning I was down to the lowest to about an hour and a half but sometimes it goes on for four or five hours.

It’s not all negative, Mr Gardener says when the pain is not there he functions “absolutely normally”.

Harry Gardner: "I feel that we are entitled to be doctor-assisted to die when the time arrives" (Supplied).

For Mr Gardener, it wasn’t his illness that led him to desire to have the right to choose when to die, but rather is a view he’s had for most of his life.

“I’ve had those thoughts pretty well all my life – that when a person’s life is finished that an easy way to die should be available, it’s just flitted in and out of my consciousness all my life, despite my association with people of religious persuasion,” he explains.

“I was a scientist, a practising scientist in research, for many years. My approach is based on what you can measure in life and what you can record and understand and not what you infer belongs in the supernatural world, elsewhere.”

“I want it and people who are seriously ill, like I am, want that option,” he says.

“It’s not a question of an academic discussion as to which is the better philosophy. Although I do think it’s rooted in basic philosophy. I’m amongst the 30 percent of the census who don’t record a religion and I try to base my philosophy on a scientific approach to the world.

“On behalf of the 30 percent, I feel that we are entitled to be doctor-assisted to die when the time arrives.”